Phelps on Keynes vs. Hayek

What now do we do? With some luck, the economy will “recover” through a return of investment activity to sustainable
levels once some capital stocks, like houses, have been worked down. But it will not recover to a strong level of business activity unless something happens to boost innovation. The great question is how best to get innovators humming again through the breadth of the land. Hayek himself said little on innovation. But at least he had an applicable theory of how a healthy economy works.

The Keynesians, sad to say, show no understanding of how the economy works. They think they can lever employment up or
down by pushing buttons – as if the economy were hydraulic. They show no grasp of the concepts that would be necessary to restore us to prosperity and flourishing. In an old image that applies well to the posturing of today’s self-styled Keynesians, “the Emperor has no clothes.”